As you may have heard, rapidly rising rnb and alternative hip hop star FRANK OCEAN has basically come out of the closet.He wasn't forced to or blackmailed. He just couldn't handle living a lie.

This is EPIC in hip Hop /RnB terms,although in our day and age it really shouldn't be. No one has done this before. Rumour mills have spun about certain stars.Denials followed.But this is the first that has come out openly by themselves and at such an early vulnerable stage of their career.

Now we have to wait and see what the fan base will do

Because this could potentially ruin his career.Male RnB artistsrelease song after song professing love for their woman. And he does have a huge female fan base who might feel cheated and feel he was never "available" and he had "lied" in his songsThere maybe a backlash.

I hope not, I actually don't think this will happen, already hip hop elders, moguls, fans and his odd future crew have all rallied support. I admire his bravery.Frank Ocean just kicked the door in!

Why does HE matter anyway? Well as far as the RnB world is concerned , when he arrived, he was the prototype of the complicated messy version of love in the 21st century. he did not hark back to styles of yesteryear (Amy Winehouse,Adele), he wasn't an entertainer like Usher. He was something different with a production style of his own more like trip hop or dark hip hop than modern rnb.Now here's what made him famous....

He is being sued as we speak by the Eagles for thissong which take on a whole new meaning now he's come out. a cynical take on marriage in the USA...

Frank Ocean -"American Wedding"(lyrics version)

the song that started it all.....

Frank Ocean - "Swim good"

And then someone does a cover of "swim good"bringing out the emotional content of the song.One of the best amateur "almost acapella" versions of a rnb song ever....

Ebrahim -"swim Good" (frank Ocean cover)

Frank Ocean is part of the ODD FUTURE collective, the biggest assembly of creativity since the hey day of the Wu -tang clan.Here's a posse cut with all the members.Frank rhymes a verses too..

you mean at 5:30 in the video! Yeah, i'm sure that line flew over alot of people's heads!The video came out before his statement.Sort of a trailer for the main show.

What makes this different is not just about Frank Ocean, but really it's about Odd futureand what they're going to do with this.

Most of us who are garden variety straight heterosexual probably don't know what Frank Ocean is going through to put his career on the line,and probably never will.

This is also very different from other singers who came out Because while Elton Johnis famously open about his orientation, he doesn't perform songs about his partner David Furnish, he sings songs about straight love. So do most main stream singers who are gay. But Frank Ocean says that on his album Agent Orange he will have songs about his "experiences".

That's brave.

For a start which radio stations are going to play these songs? Most of Americais not New York or even London over here. And even in those places they might encounter resistance.

Maybe this could only happen in the internet Age outside of formal nationalradio restrictions and corporate worries about tarnishing their brands.

Being the Audio Visual person that i am, what about the videos for Frank songs??!Who will play those?Why have i bought that up?

Have you seen the Odd Future videos?...Oh my God What will FrankOcean's videos be like?...

Be very Scared...:-O....If you can manage to get through the whole of nextvideo without being very worried for your sanity or the sanity of Odd future crewthen there's probably something wrong with you....

"Hodgy, Domo Genesis And Tyler, The Creator- Rella "

Real Life is just as worrying..lol!....

"Odd Future in London"

Its could be like watching a train crash from afar.

It's like punk rock hip hop rnb. It is jubilee year after all. Just like the era of Punk rock last time. That belligerent..don't care..offensive with the truth energy is back and it's not underground.It suddenly all makes sense

Now, I'm saying this as a fan of Odd Future, not particularly Ocean as I don't like his music. But nonetheless. Does the fact Ocean has come out have any bearing on the homophobic disses in other OF members' songs? Are we supposed to take all of it as kind of horrorcore excess-as-aesthetic? Or do these disses fall under 'reclaimed language' - ie, OF has a gay member, therefore we're allowed to talk about people as 'fucking faggots'?

I'm just wondering... do admire OF in general, the stand they took against Chris Brown was a good move, and I applaud Ocean for coming out. I'm just wondering whether there's a debate here about political correctness.

There's no denying that a great many of OF gang's lyrics could be construed as homophobic, misogynistic and pro-violence. I'm also not saying hip-hop should be sanitised or censored. I listen to a lot of rappers who say WAY more fucked up shit than OF. I just wonder whether Ocean being 'out' will have any effect on OF's lyrics.

Is Ocean going to get the piss taken out of him by his own band for being gay? That would seem like the natural response, if indeed the band are coming from the point of view of saying 'all targets are acceptable, because what we do is satirical.' I'm just curious what the next step is, now he's out.

I don't think it changes anything about the very valid critiques against Odd Future's use of homophobic slurs or the general discourse, but it should change the debate to be about what it actually is about: Their overall discourse. And not stupid misguised discussions about whether or not the individual members of Odd Future are incarnate homophobes themselves.

And the band already knew he was gay. Or at least Tyler."hahaha yeah, ive know for a while, he told me a long time ago. it was just funny cause i was getting bashed as a homophobe or whatever and i kept saying dude how am i one? i have gay friends like what the fuck leave me alone haha. yeah thats my nigga tho, shit is hard for him but he did that." - http://www.formspring.me/wolfhaley/q/344895755762298564

Whether or not him going public will open up to the others making fun of him for it, I have no idea. And whether or not it'll be mean-spirited or not is again uncertain. I imagine there'll be some slight ripping, but the band does tend to make a point at not making fun of each other, but more of themselves. Tyler is the only one who refers to him as ugly, and nobody, but Syd bags on her for being gay or a woman for example.

It is kinda funny that with Syd and Ocean, Odd Future is probably one of the least heteronormative hip hop group.

I like that this happened. I like his new album. The only other odd future guys I like are Earl and Tyler. It was never hard for me to get through their music, just because I sort of seperate art from my personal experience, and don't dismiss something just because it y'know...expresses an attitude that hates me. But Tyler on twitter really bothered me. I understand as an artist being able to have the freedom to say whatever you want. But to be spewing homophobic slurs on twitter like it's your birthright was offputting. Though I said at the time, that usually when someone is that fixated on using those specific words, there's something personal behind it. And I don't think having gay friends is the whole of it.

I would not be entirely shocked if Tyler was in some way LGBT. I just don't think you can talk about something in that manner that much without it being a cover for repressed feelings. You see this all the time in politics where a politican goes hard after gay people, for family values and stuff--and then two years later, he's with a male prostitute in some hotel room or airport. It's almost formulaic at this point. I suppose the main thing that would give me pause in this case is that Tyler has never been against LGBT in terms of his beliefs. Just into using words that dehumanizes us in his songs and tweets. So it could also just be immature kid playing with taboos.

It will be interesting to see how they handle Ocean being out, because it does indirectly drag them into it as a click. Between Ocean and Syd, the perception from bigots is going to be that Odd Future is LGBT. So they may find themselves on our side whether they like it or not, and get a whole new experience in terms of what our community goes through.

Anyways. That ocean letter was amazing. Has to be one of the best coming out letters ever. It should probably go into some kind of museum.

There is sort of a stunned shock at the moment that an Rnb artisthas actually done it.Just said it..they didn't even need to....

It's not because they have been found doing something they shouldn'tlike 90s RnB star Tevin Campbell, but he didn't publicly come out.(Correct me if i'm wrong.)

But at some point there will be some type of mass reaction.

Some people out there will probably do everything to stop a gay sub genre of RnB being created by Frank releasing songs about his "experiences".

He's going to need some major league RnB/Hip Hop help to stop him being stifled,and pushed to the margins.That means major artists are going to have to publiclyshow their support and pull that massive fan base that is Hip Hop and Rnb with themand probably alot of other genre mainstream and average joe support.

He's going to get alot of flack.If not now, later.

As for the cursing and language in hip hop...that's a long dark tunnel..I don't agree with alot of stuff said, but arguing about hip hop language islike feeding a whole field of trolls. You will not get a rational debate..just alot of flaming.

Anybody can swear and be offensive.But very few can be artists and movepeople.We instinctively know who is who even when we are grinding our teethwhile feeling insulted.

I prefer Morrissey over the Spice Girls. Any day of the week, and I'm not thatinto Morrissey....;-)...

You gay and Bi people out there have got it hard. Bloody hell.Shields up!TEAMFRANK.